Customer Reviews

Long Walk

5 star:		(241)
4 star:		(83)
3 star:		(41)
2 star:		(14)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

If you ask me, The Long Walk may well be the most fascinating novel Stephen King has ever written. Written back in 1966-67, while King was a college freshman, the novel earned the author nothing more than a form rejection letter. Finally, after a few years of dust-gathering, the manuscript was released into a much more welcoming world in the form of Richard Bachman's second novel. It's a magnificent story - not perfect, but magnificent nonetheless. It's a disarmingly simple tale centered on a seemingly mundane activity, yet in King's masterful hands The Long Walk burrows into the core of a number of characters, lays down miles of metaphors about the human condition, and absolutely mesmerizes you with its emotional force and power.

The setting is an alternate, possible fascist America; King leaves things pretty murky on the sociopolitical end of things, almost surely by design. The Long Walk is really one of your "it can't happen in America" kind of stories, and the horror of it all (and, yes, I would categorize this as a horror novel) is made more powerful by obscuring the lines between our America and this fictionalized America. Here, The Long Walk is the premier sporting event in the land. Spectators turn out in droves, bets are made left and right, and the whole nation watches and cheers. Obviously, this is not a regular walk, nor is it a race in the purist sense. Endurance - mental even more than physical - is the key to victory in this sport. To win, all you have to do is outlast 99 other competitors - and the winner receives nothing less than whatever he wants for the rest of his life. Before you yell "Sign me up," you'll want to hear about the details. You have to maintain a pace of at least four miles per hour; fall below the pace, and you get a warning. You are allowed three warnings (and you can "lose" a warning by walking another hour on the pace), and then you get ticketed. Getting ticketed doesn't get you a place to rest or even a little much-needed nourishment; all it gets you is one or more bullets in the head.

The obvious question is: why would anyone volunteer for this, knowing that he was almost surely going to die? That's a large part of what this whole novel is about. The contestants do a lot of talking while they're walking; most of them dance around the "why" issue, but we see clues to some of the reasons as each lad draws closer and closer to death. For some, reality doesn't really set in until the guns started blazing. Cockiness turns to anger, fear, shock, and just about every other kind of dark emotion you can imagine. The boys are stripped bare in both body and mind as the Walk goes on and on, through all kinds of weather. Through his characters, King is basically asking the reader how he/she will face death when it comes. Will you freeze up early on? How long will you fight to stay alive after you've pushed your body far beyond the breaking point? Will you lie down and accept your fate, or will you lose control and lash out at your perceived enemies?

The most weighty questions actually involve the crowd. As the Walk progresses, more and more people come out to cheer the Watchers on, secretly hoping to see someone get ticketed before there very eyes. This goes far beyond craning your neck to see everything you can at an accident scene. For the Walkers, the crowd eventually becomes Crowd, an amorphous creature always right there roaring and grabbing at them, living (and dying) vicariously through them. Obviously, one thing the Long Walk represents is life itself. The Walkers literally age before our eyes as exhausting hours turn into ever darker, more painful days. Death's approach changes every one of them. Fate has its way with each one's odds of winning, allowing for no favorites among them, as even those with the most going for them sometimes find themselves felled by injuries and sickness. During the journey, the Walkers arrange themselves into little groups, develop enemies, and help - or don't help - one another keep going. Is life a competition or a journey? Different things motivate them to keep going - family, a girl back home, or - for some - just the satisfaction of outlasting another Walker they don't like (oddly enough, the Prize never really seems to mean much to any of them).

I could just go on and on with the symbolism of this story. I haven't even described the characters, and I think it is better if I don't - except to say that the story is told from the perspective of "Maine's own" Walker, Ray Garraty. I could read this novel over and over again without ever growing tired of it. It's just endlessly fascinating and illuminating. Even as a very young writer, King had a lot to say, he understood people, and - most of all - he knew how to tell a story better than just about everyone else who has ever lived.

The Long Walk is the second book I have read that was written by King under the name Richard Bachman. It is the in-depth story of how a boy named Ray Garraty must survive the greatest challenge of his life -- the Long Walk. This annual event is summarized as follows: 100 boys start walking; if you walk under 4 miles per hour, you get a warning; after 3 warnings, if you slow down again, you are shot dead. The winner of the Long Walk is the last boy left walking.

Stephen King (a.k.a. Richard Bachman) introduces and develops the characters of many of the boys in the event. As a reader, you get to learn about Garraty, Pete McVries, Hank Olson, Art Baker, Barkovitch, Stebbins, and others, who each have their own personality quirks and ways of looking at life. Each boy has entered the Long Walk for a different reason and I found their discussions about life and death to be quite interesting (a social statement by King, perhaps?). The reader is led along the course and each significant event is mentioned along the way, with some unexpected occurrences that may surprise you.

As the challenge narrows down from the original 100 competitors to less than 50, then to just a handful of boys remaining, the scenario becomes rather intense. Who will die next? How will he die? And most importantly, who will be left at the end to claim the Prize? Although the suspense builds slowly, it tends to add to the dramatic effect of the final moments and keep the reader wanting to read more to find out what happens (I was so eager to find out that I read the last half of the book in one sitting).

Although the story is interesting and held my attention, there are a couple of criticisms that knocked it down from 5 to 4 stars. First, the ending was too predictable. I had a feeling from the start of what would happen and being verified at the end tended to downplay the whole story. Second, some of the characters were killed off rather abruptly without much detail or explanation. I guess it just depends on what you are expecting and how you interpret the story.

Overall, I have to say that I enjoyed reading the Long Walk. It tests the limits of human endurance in a unique way and makes the reader think about life and death in a new light (or at least I did). Unlike many of King's other novels, the Long Walk is more of dramatic suspense story rather than a horror story, which is what I have noticed about his writing as Richard Bachman. It is a good read, however, and I recommend it to anyone, whether you are a fan of Stephen King or not.

The Long Walk has got to be one of Stephen King's greatest short story accomplishments, up there with the highlights of the Skeleton Crew.

The story is about an endurathon contest, where 100 boys just start walking, and if any competitor falls under 4 miles an hour, he is issued a warning. However, if a competitor slows down to under 4 miles after receiving 3 warnings...he is shot dead.

King introduces many unique characters to us, and we begin to almost feel their personalities, and the annoying little habits that they have. King does a masterful job of removing some of the characters from the story with not much detail, really placing an emphasis on the mental drain that is occuring with the competitors in The Long Walk, they are so tired they dont even notice how or when some of their friends are being killed.

The final surge towards the end of the walk is written quite ingeniously, and is even quite surprising.

Overall, I would highly recommend this short story. ALthough the book may be about an endurathon, it is certainly not an endurathon of a read, the pages will just fly by.

I first read "The Long Walk" about three years ago, and found that it stayed with me for nearly every step I've taken since then. Any walk of a mile or longer invariably brought up memories of the deadly Long Walk taken by a hundred fictional teenagers in the alternate-history Earth of this early King classic.

As other reviewers have noted, just to read this book is to feel physically tired. The characters start walking, at a grueling pace of four miles per hour, early in the first chapter, and never stop. There are only two ways out of the contest: death or victory... and, out of the 100 contestants, there can only be one winner. "The Long Walk" takes place over five days in May, and by the final day, the Prize may no longer seem worth winning.

As painful as your legs will feel by the final chapter, you'll be equally intrigued by the little alternate-history hints King drops throughout the book. With references to John Travolta and the handover of the Panama Canal, "Long Walk" is still very much a product of the 1970s. But when the characters mention "April 31st", or New Hampshire's provisional governor, or the German bombing raids over the East Coast in World War II, you'll find yourself wondering just how the world of the "Long Walk" came to be. Most intriguing is a fictional quote from the "second Clay-Liston" fight, which ends even worse for Sonny Liston than did the actual Ali-Liston fight in our own 1965.

The only thing that disrupts "The Long Walk" is the ambiguous final page. King points out in the introduction to this edition that his Bachman persona did not specialize in happy endings, and of course we know that King writes insanity quite convincingly. I've beem vaguely dissatisfied with the ending after both my readings -- but, taken by itself, the final line is still a creepy finale to a very creepy book...

The Long Walk is the only book I've read that actually left me physically tired after reading it. To describe this book as scary would be misleading (and an understatement). Horrifyingly intense is the only way to sum it up. There is nothing creepy or supernatural about this story. It is like nothing that has ever been written.

What makes this story so intense is the feeling that it could really happen in the near future. Stephen King is a genius when it comes to pulling you right into his nightmares. The story starts out very subtly and then you quickly learn what the contest "The Long Walk" is all about (and it aint no benefit marathon). What is truly amazing about this story is that it was written twenty years before the explosion of reality T.V. The story seems even more plausible when read today.

I have never been more engrossed in a story than this one. I really started to feel the fatigue and constant dread that these boys must have felt.

This book is for anyone who loves to enter a different world and be terrified. Whatever kind of sick person would like that is beyond me, but you know who you are. Read this book you will love it. Oh, by the way, keep in mind that a happy ending is never guaranteed in King's early novels.

This is a great book. It was recommended to me by a customer who told me of all of King's books, this one stayed with him the most. I only finished it yesterday but I can see that he's probably right. I can't really be within a group of people without somehow thinking we're all like the boys in the Long Walk, trying to outdo everyone else as if our life depends on it. Yet, we're trapped with one another, and the only thing that buffers us from insanity is other people (Sartre said hell is other people, but is lonliness really all that much better?)

Well, not to get too philosophical or anything. It was a good, fast read. I was surprised most by the actual distance traveled in the Long Mile. I found myself wondering how they could still be on their feet, let alone walking at least 4 mph after hundreds of miles. And I was intrigued how desensitized the boys became to death, and how accepting they became of their own inevitable impending deaths. I can almost say some of them reached peace near the end. Perhaps that was the most disturbing part.

The ending was vague, as many have said. But I think King made his point. The winner wasn't really a winner after all.

Of all of the Stephen King books I've read under his pseudonym, Richard Bachman, this one is tops (or perhaps "Rage").

I picked this up for a second read after all of the reality tv shows popped up, and I still think it's scary how close we're actually getting to this scenario.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot line, one hundred young men are selected for what is called "The Long Walk," and are watched like heros as they walk and walk. No sleeping, no slowing down to go to the bathroom, nothing. Losers are shot, but the winner gets ANYTHING he wants. Care to gamble your life with 100-1 odds based on your sheer will and ability to walk hundreds of miles?

King's (er... Bachman's) pace is excellent, each character's story is interesting, but the greatest of all comes with imagining the rules and regulations and possibilities of this game. One of the networks actually picked up what sounds suspiciously like a VERY toned-down version of the game in the book. It has to do with walking or some other sort of endurance for a prize. Is it art imitating life or just plain creepy? Read this book and try and find a screening of an indie movie called "Series 7" (contestants each get a gun; the winner goes on to Series 8). They pack a serious 1-2 punch to the disturbing nature of reality shows.

The "Long Walk" is one of the earliest books written by Stephen King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, and it's not a horror story per se. King wrote this during his freshman year in college during the Fall of 1966 and Spring of 1967. This is a great book. And, one can tell at this early time of writing King had a knack for description, in addition to creative ideas and story-telling. When King submitted it in a writing competition it was rejected without any comments. So, he through it into an old box.

In the "Long Walk" the backgrounds, motivations, beliefs, and social attitudes come out in the characters as they walk together. Ray Garraty (the main), McVries, Olson, Baker, Stebbins, and Barkovitch. Each has a distinct personality. The latter, Barkovitch, is the vituperative, harping, anti-social antagonist.

What piques the reader and human nature, is that these guys chose to participate in this competition. They were among 100 selected across America. The very few to be accepted for the Long Walk. The prize for the single winner is everything you want for the rest of your life. For the rest of the 99 they get to rest, eternally.

Like in almost all good stories, the conversations among these fellas can lead one to think about his/herself.

To find out who wins, read this great piece of work by a young Stephen King.

I just bought a used copy of The Bachman Books and The Long Walk was one I just had to read (tried Rage first but wasn't as impressed with that as this one). This was the main story that attracted me to the book. Also, the Rage novel was a buying point being that it is no longer in print due to the school shootings in the past decade or so. The Running Man (I preferred the movie to this) and Roadwork are also good, but The Long Walk is the best of the bunch, for me.

The Long Walk is more than the typical Stephen King (or Richard Bachman) book. Much like King's other novels about male youth (The Body, Dreamcatcher, Hearts In Atlantis, IT etc) you find yourself relating to the characters. While a story about walking can be repeatative and boring, King outdoes himself here by focusing on the characters involved. He pulls you into the story slowly until you feel like you are one of the 100 walking.

I found myself so involved in this novel that I felt as if I were walking right along with these characters. Despite rooting against each other at first, there is a bond that takes place so that near the end it became sadder each time a boy was killed. The prize being "everything you want" is a bit vague, but it's also a double-edged sword. The one thing that can't be given as a prize is all the friends lost on "The Long Walk". They are gone for good. The toll that the walking takes is also another double-edged sword because the survivor is so worn down that he is a shell of his former self.

It's amazing how King took an everyday thing for most of us (just simply walking) and turned it into a horrific event. Seeing others around you killed and knowing it could be you if you get more than three warnings, could play games with your mind. No stopping to rest, to eat, to go to the bathroom. No stopping for sleep or charley-horses or a pebble in your shoes. Seeing the crowds eating, sitting and relaxing also would play with your mind. I'm sure most people have walked so far that you felt you couldn't continue. It's easy to relate to for most of us. That's where King is at his best, when he reaches into your soul and gives you something that you can relate to.

This book is simply a great read. It makes you stop and think about human nature. Why we do some of the things we do and sometimes not think ahead at how hard it could be. The walkers themselves are celebrities in this world created by King. Much like reality shows today have made celebrities (Survivor, Dancing With Stars, American Idol). It is amazing King saw ahead all those years ago when he wrote this novel, that reality shows would take everyday people and put them in contests like this.

This is one of King's (or Bachman's) best novels. Very hard to put down. Despite knowing that 99 of the 100 will be killed King manages to make you give a damn about all the contestants. There is a sadness each time someone is killed. I have to give this novel a 5 out of 5 stars.

I occasionally describe a movie as "Like watching a trainwreck." You don't want to watch, but you can't quit. That's the way _The Long Walk_ works. It is excruciating. As usual Stephen King's dialog for boys is right on -- they are all teenagers, of varying sophistication -- all (but one) doomed to die -- and yet they walk on. We never know how the long walk got started, why it is tolerated, how there could be a civilization that would take 100 young men, carefully selected, and run them down into the ground, shooting each one mercilessly as they fail. Obviously, King was considering the Ultimate Game Show; miss a question and you die. The only real fascination in this book is wondering how he will kill off the odds-on favorites. They get colds, they go crazy, etc. etc. ad nauseum. I really wanted to put the book away (and did, to read some other book) but ultimately I had to finish it, just like I'd have to watch that train wreck until the last car stops.

So. You've been warned.